The present invention relates to clamping devices for use in connection with medical diagnostic tables and particularly to clamping devices for use in connection with X-ray diagnostic tables. During the course of a medical examination it is typically necessary to mount one or more accessory devices to a diagnostic table such as poles for intravenous treatment of the patient, devices for controlling or monitoring the patient, patient support devices and other devices or paraphernalia necessary or desirable for assisting the patient simultaneously during the course of the patient's examination.
Diagnostic tables typically include an edge which is specially shaped for purposes of accomodating a most secure mating with a specially configured clamp. Such accomodative shaping of the edge of the table top of a diagnostic table is difficult and expensive to produce and may interfere with the analytical output of a given diagnostic machine. For example, if a table top having an edge 10 with a skin thickness T as shown in FIG. 1 is employed in an X-ray analysis in which X-ray photons A, B, C are projected at and pass through the patient (not shown) lying on the table, the effective skin thickness through which each of photons A, B, and C must penetrate varies greatly and may thus have a greatly varying effect on the degree to which photons A, B, and C are absorbed. Such a variation in absorption by the edge 10 of the table can thus distort the true shadow image of photons which pass through the patient being examined.
It is an object of the invention to provide a clamping device for diagnostic tables which obviates the necessity for specially shaped table edges and eliminates the attendant excessive costs and problems associated with having to construct specially shaped table top edges and clamping structures therefor.